A Filipino medical assistant bandages the injured arm of a woman in a PCAU clinic at San Rogue on Leyte Island, January 1945. “Hard, Bitter, Unpleasantly Necessary Duty” A Little-Known World War II Story of the Philippines

By David Smollar

6 Prologue Summer 2015 n the steamy dawn of Friday, May 4, 1945, hundreds of Filipino residents in the western Leyte port of Palompon lined the shore along the Visayan Sea. The special U.S. Army team known as PCAU 17, after four months of helping to heal and jump-start their war-torn com- munity, was sailing to another island needing aid. For more than two hours under an already baking sun, they watched the boat slowly make its way from Ithe pier, serenading the departing soldiers and wishing them Godspeed. “The local citizens sought us out to wring our hands, thank us, and bless us, and thank us again in their own version of Bon Voyage,” the medical officer with Philippine Civil Affairs Unit (PCAU) 17 wrote in one of his many letters home. “Lots of emotion was expressed,” he added. “A real poverty­ stricken mother of a skeletal child I saw during the first days after fighting stopped, reckoned now as long ago in ‘war time,’ handed me a dozen fresh eggs. Another former patient gave me fried chicken. The hospital men and women, they financed a pair of house slippers and tea cloth as a ‘thank you’ for me. “You know, I’m pretty gruff, and I was often damn tough in getting these people to understand how to fight illness and disease, but all this made me, well, downright sentimental. It feels good to know that for them a hospital is no longer a place to shun, not a place to go to die, but rather a place to go to get well.” The medical officer was my father, Leo Smollar. The team of 10 officers and 39 enlisted men had assisted tens of thousands of Filipinos to recover medically, educationally, and eco- nomically from three years of Japanese military occupation. It was one of 30 special units that, between October 1944 and July 1945, followed in the footsteps of invasion forces retaking the Philippines island by island. Each unit provided immediate food relief, re­opened schools, helped local government reemerge, assisted fishermen and farmers to resume work, and set up hospitals and clinics to treat war wounds and endemic disease.

Top: Dr. Leo Smollar, the author’s father, at the Letters from My Father hospital and dispensary in Palompon, Leyte Island, Shed Light on War Duties Philippines, in early 1945. Smollar was part of special Army civil affairs teams that established medical and other services on Leyte as Japanese forces were Three years ago, I finally unbundled my father’s cache of 700 World pushed out.” Above: In a February 28 letter to his wife, Smollar writes of the gratifying improvement he War II letters to my mother, written while he was overseas for 17 had witnessed—that the locals “have filled out; no months, and saved by her for reasons I will never know. During three longer do I see that look of hunger.”

“Hard, Bitter, Unpleasantly Necessary Duty” Prologue 7 for drawing up the Philippines strategy. He knew that the general dearly wanted to avoid chaos in the aftermath of invasion. In an oral history, he recalled, “I’ve always said that I helped write the plan based on the novel. I read it, and reread it, and read it again; a marvel- ous book, it taught you how to do civil affairs.” (Rauh, a U.S. Supreme Court law clerk before the war, later worked for President Harry Tru- man and became a longtime force in the Dem- ocratic Party.) The final plans, which MacArthur forced on a reluctant War Department in Septem- ber 1944, called for the 30 teams to revitalize combat-damaged areas with as little med- dling as possible from regular military units. The idea was that self-contained teams would allow for a shorter period of military govern- ment and prepare the islands for indepen- dence, promised by the United States before the Japanese invasion. The officers had specialties in medicine, law enforcement, agriculture, labor relations, and administration; enlisted men were culled almost exclusively from Filipino Americans from California who had volunteered for all- Filipino regiments to fight in the Pacific. A February 1945 Army map shows that Smollar’s unit, PCAU 17, was assigned the western portion of the island, centered at Palompon. “I will finally . . . put my medical training to work.” decades of medical practice in San Diego, he held military and government posts in the col- never once talked to me about his Philip- ony on and off since the early 1900s and felt a Of the political and military calculus factored pine experiences. But the written chronicle close attachment to its people. In planning to into plans for PCAUs, my father knew noth- (intermixed with deeply personal expres- retake the islands, the general believed deeply ing. In October 1944, he was simply one of sions about family, life, and love) opened a that his prestige was linked to successful post- thousands of soldiers cooling their heels in door for me to research the unusual history combat civil recovery. Hollandia, British New Guinea, awaiting a behind these units and my father’s role. unit assignment. He was spending most days Historian Morton Netzorg, who anno- MacArthur’s Idea: taking advanced coursework on tropical med- tated a massive bibliography of World War II Restore Civil Society icine—he had been sent to the Pacific because works on the Philippines, called the PCAU of that expertise—when word came in early story one that “few Filipinos or Americans Novelist and war correspondent John Hersey’s November designating him as the medical know of even vaguely.” 1944 novel, A Bell for Adano, had fictionalized officer for a civil affairs unit. The PCAUs were the brainchild of Gen. the bungled effort by Allied forces in 1943 to “Thank God I will finally have an opportu- Douglas MacArthur and his civil affairs staff. restore civil society in Sicily after the German nity to put my medical training to work!” he In May 1942, MacArthur escaped by subma- withdrawal, where combat staff officers micro- enthused. For the next several weeks, PCAU rine from the Philippines as the Japanese army managed beleaguered civil affairs personnel. units 9–20 crammed information on Filipino closed in on U.S. forces isolated on the island Lt. Col. Joseph Rauh, the top planner for language, politics, economics, and related top- of Corregidor in Manila Bay. MacArthur had MacArthur, used Hersey’s novel as a template ics. (The first eight units had gone ashore in the

8 Prologue Summer 2015 initial invasion of eastern Leyte on October 20.) PCAU 17 moved west over tortuous moun- His letters affix the desperate human suf- “There is quite a nice crew of lawyers, judges, tain roads and set up in Palompon, the scene fering to the statistics: prosecutors, doctors, college teachers, fellows of heavy fighting through Christmas Day. who have been abroad, quite a contrast from The town had been pummeled by Ameri- The population has been underfed, under- the ‘dese and dosers’ of other units,” he wrote. can air and artillery bombardment, with only clothed and overworked by the Japs. Many, The units transferred to Oro Bay in Dutch two buildings left undamaged; it swarmed many cases of worms and parasitic infes- New Guinea, then sailed on December 21 as with refugees forced to the coastal plain by tations. Child mortality is high. Vitamin part of a 48-ship troop convoy zigzagging its the retreating Japanese. An estimated 25,000 deficiencies and beri-beri are widespread. way to Leyte. On board, my father described Japanese troops remained scattered but Tuberculosis is high. Sanitation is very poor. an atmosphere at once of boredom and appre- potent in mountains to the east. Most common diseases are intestinal and hension, with daily air raid drills. spread by bowel movements done every- “The closer you get to an area of action, Letters Offer Detailed Descriptions where. Must alter the custom of defecating the ‘cinema glamour’ of war presented back Of the Worst of Human Suffering whenever and wherever urge comes. No in the States is exposed for the fraud it is,” hospital but only a half-destroyed two- he wrote. “Everyone here sees war as hard, The first of many medical reports that my room structure used as a clinic. The sick are bitter, unpleasantly necessary duty.” father, along with other PCAU doctors, filed numerous and there’s a continuous stream Only a Christmas Eve variety show pro- weekly with MacArthur’s headquarters in of civilian infected and wounded, some vided a respite, held in the late afternoon Australia (and now stored at the National deliberately bayoneted by Japs. It’s more heat before blackout began; a solo trumpeter Archives) provide only a staccato-like glimpse than enough to make your heart bleed. “brought the crowd to tears with a full-of- into Palompon’s initial medical situation: feeling rendition of White Christmas.” one tent hospital with 27 beds, all filled; 17 In the first week, PCAU-employed laborers Ashore at Dulag city on December 28, the civilian war casualties; two dispensaries (clin- cleared rubble along the shoreline for a perma- unit waited for equipment to be off-loaded ics) with 1,122 patients, a third of them with nent 50-bed hospital in addition to the tent. In amid stifling heat, humidity, monsoon rains tropical ulcers (skin lesions known as jungle a single day on January 6, my father treated 200 and nightly air raids, although MacArthur rot) or yaws (a bacterial infection where skin starving refugees in rags, vaccinated for small- had declared victory on Leyte. On January 3, and bones swell); 396 serious cases. pox 35 children who had never seen a doctor,

“The closer you get to an area of action, the ‘cinema glamour’ of war presented back in the States is exposed for the fraud it is,” he wrote. “Everyone here sees war as hard, bitter, unpleasantly necessary duty.”

This image taken by Smollar shows some of the Filipino children who came to the clinic.

“Hard, Bitter, Unpleasantly Necessary Duty” Prologue 9 and lectured a large group on how to dispose of The initial shipment of supplies quickly rank of major sufficient to procure services of a human waste to prevent the spread of disease. ran short, but my father struck up a friend- small Navy craft. What he failed to mention was ship with Winthrop Rockefeller (a scion that the PCAU’s commanding officer and four A Rockefeller Finds of the famed family and later governor of enlisted men were killed that same day on the Medical Supplies Arkansas), the supply officer for the 77th same mountain road in a Japanese ambush while Division of the Eighth Army, which was still riding in a supply convoy. But death was everywhere, including for Amer- fighting nearby in the mountainous terrain. In late January, he apologized that he ican soldiers in what MacArthur had called Rockefeller provided many needed medi- had not written for several days because of “mopping up.” Wrote my father: “Watching cal provisions for a month and was singled urgent hospital business, omitting details wounded come in is not the prettiest pastime. out for recognition by one of MacArthur’s of a rushed boat trip north to Villaba town. You can tell the dead at first sight by the undis- aides. “He’s very efficient, he’s an OK guy,” There, nasty fighting with many casualties, turbed flies on the yellowing white skin or face my father agreed, a major concession for a military and civilian, took place between or whatever anatomical surface you can see. poor Chicago native who leaned left politi- American troops and organized Japanese The real job of mankind should be war preven- cally. army units making a last-ditch effort. A tion, just like disease prevention.” If his medical descriptions breathed life into the few rounds of friendly fire from the fighting Equally wrenching were the ulcerated dry weekly reports, his assurances to my mother were directed by mistake toward his craft. children, “so many emaciated, undernour- that combat was apart from his daily routine And only several months later, in May, ished, with even two- three- and four-year were substantially understated. In a January 12 did he recount the nightly Japanese air raids olds suckling at their mothers’ breast, so letter he recounted the rough, muddy, and cork- from January until March, when he would deficient has been the diet under the Japs.” screw mountain road required to drive between climb out from his slit trench to hear civil- Palompon and the larger port of Ormoc, where ians calling, “Doctor Smollar, come quickly, Below: Smollar mentioned meeting Winthrop Rockefeller, Rockefeller’s supply depot was located. Four there are wounded” and throw clothes over a supply officer with the Army’s 77th Division, in his letter of February 1. Rockefeller helped procure medical days later, he wrote that for “comfort’s sake” he pajamas and rush to the hospital to treat supplies for PCAU 17. would now travel by boat between two towns, his assorted injuries. Dr. Smollar Performs “He’s one of those careerists His First Surgeries who keeps interfering,” he wrote on February 16. “Today I told Rockefeller was never able to procure labora- him to go screw himself and that tory or other equipment for PCAU 17, so my I will ask for a transfer if he keeps father was forced to work without a micro- intruding, and he asked me not scope, x-ray equipment, or specialty devices. to do so, so I know that inspec- “It’s heart-wrenching to have to send someone tions from the higher-ups have home with aspirin knowing that the patient rated my work highly.” could die” for lack of surgical equipment. In fact, the previous week, Lt. Though trained as an internist, he began Col. Edgar Crossman, a member to perform operations out of necessity. of MacArthur’s staff, had visited In February, he did his first major sur- PCAU 17 along with Maj. Ray gery, amputating a hand above the wrist on Laux from the War Department’s a patient whose fingers and thumb had been Civil Affairs Division in Washing- blown off by vengeful Japanese. The follow- ton, D.C. Crossman wanted Laux ing week he performed an emergency ampu- to see a PCAU functioning close tation of an arm to save a fisherman and did to continuing combat, to confirm an appendectomy for an elderly woman. He reports of Rockefeller’s assistance undertook a knee surgery five days later. “I and validate rumors of problems finally chiseled a surgery book from a com- with the new commander. My bat medical unit and that’s helped a lot,” he father wrote that Laux took numer- Smollar’s letter of January 20 reported the good early progress being made on the Palompon hospital and included a sketch. The wrote. “The only thing I dread now would ous photographs of the medical ward was “going up rapidly,” and staff had organized the kitchen and be a case of demanding bowel surgery.” set-up and offered high praise. built a sanitary latrine. His first encounter with Japanese prisoners In an unpublished memoir, came in late January, brought to his hospital by Crossman said the visit confirmed his view a Navy embargo was loosened. Schools were Filipino guerrillas who had captured them in of the commander’s incompetence. Within functioning, and some local government func- the hills—one with a bullet wound to the chest. weeks, he replaced him with an officer who tions had been handed over to commonwealth “The MPs (military police) from the PCAU my father said “actually is a swell fellow with officials. The town received a working short- had to protect them because they would have plenty of brains.” wave radio. lasted about two minutes if the local civvies got Mail delivery was a perennial complaint in The weekly statistical reports throughout their hands on them,” he wrote. “Giving them field units, and the new commander brought March showed a decrease in hospital admissions medical help seemed strange at first. It’s the first sacks of overdue mail with him. He also pro- to an average of 16 a week. Four clinics now contact I’ve had with the Laws of International vided proof of mail theft within the Army’s operated in the region; almost 2,000 residents Medicine and it brings home the emotional con- postal service, another common gripe, “hav- were being seen weekly for noncombat injuries tradiction between war and law. They were so ing carefully mailed a package to himself or illnesses, with dysenteries, vitamin deficien- underfed and pathetic, and although I realized from New Guinea with a bottle of liquor, and cies, tropical ulcers, and tuberculosis cases still they were enemies, and dangerous ones if they it arrived finally, minus the liquor.” predominating, though many less severe. had weapons in the hills, I could feel no personal “People have filled out,” my father wrote. animosity. All of this intrudes on the glamoriza- Life Gets Back to Normal “No longer do I see that look of hunger, the tion of war from armchair philosophers.” As Hospital Visits Drop signs of under- and malnutrition,” though “fat and chubby persons are still unusual.” High Marks from the Brass, By early March, the Palompon region was slowly Three days later, he penned, “I can now leave But No Liquor in the Mail on the mend despite the daily drama of life and the community with a functioning medical death. The PCAU unit had established a work- system where there was none when I arrived.” My father, never entirely comfortable with career ing system of food distribution, price controls, A handful of Filipino doctors had come Army officers, crossed swords with the first one and retail stores. A few farmers had returned back to the area and were working alongside to replace the killed PCAU commander. to the fields, and daytime fishing resumed as my father. “They will gain in competence and

“Hard, Bitter, Unpleasantly Necessary Duty” Prologue 11 sooner or later they have to take over and sink Because of censorship, my father could not Another church-related story was less or swim, so I am starting to do more super- mention his specific location in letters. In one amusing. vising now.” On March 26, the hospital got letter, he had described a well-to-do young Because he treated their injuries, my father electric lights, “the equivalence of the Union woman whose family had been trapped in the had extensive conversations with Filipino guer- Pacific meeting the Central Pacific for the area when the war began in December 1941, rillas, who had carried on hit-and-run tactics transcontinental railroad.” This made refrigera- and who had managed to intercede with Japa- against the Japanese throughout the occupa- tion possible for long-term medicine storage. nese commanders during the occupation to tion. At one point, several Japanese officers had free some prisoners. Because she had pharma- been trapped in a village church by guerrillas. Children Who Survive, ceutical training, my father hired her as a hos- They refused to surrender, asserting that “no Children Who Die pital assistant. In the first days after Christmas, subject of Hirohito kowtows to a Filipino.” a wire service war correspondent with the 77th So the guerrillas had a war council and Nevertheless, there continued to be mood Division interviewed her about her experiences decided to burn the church down despite pro- swings day to day. On March 19, a 12-year- because she spoke idiomatic English, and the testations from the priest about destroying a old girl died from a rare infection, several story was printed widely in stateside newspa- House of God. “But the guerillas said that the mothers had miscarriages, and another ampu- pers with a Palompon dateline. devil was now in God’s house and it must be tation was required. A week later, a year-old destroyed,” he wrote. “And so it was. In telling child came to the hospital with severe amoe- “It’s depressing that the the story, they find the act heroic but I person- bic dysentery, too late to save. “It’s depressing ally don’t find it noble to for a mob to cremate that the baby would have lived easily had the baby would have lived easily a few individuals. For me, it’s just another in mother brought it here earlier but many still the long series of bloody incidents of war.” never come in time,” he wrote. had the mother brought it In early May, the PCAU prepared for trans- On April 4 he described the too-common here earlier but many still fer to northern Mindanao, the latest island in scene of a child’s funeral procession, a slow, the Army’s methodical retaking of the archi- sad movement down the main street, from the never come in time.” pelago. A contingent of personnel had already church next to the hospital to the local cem- been dispatched to the small island of Mas- etery. Yet the next day, he was enthusing about That’s how my mother found out where my bate, whose 5,000 residents needed food, sup- the PCAU’s new mascot, a six-year-old named father’s unit was situated. Only in April could plies, and a clinic after brief fighting in April to Bartholomew, an orphan who had been near he begin to dateline his letters from the town. liberate it. Sanitation issues continued to vex death from malnourishment when brought Japanese resistance was finally being subdued; my father and his PCAU colleagues to the final to the hospital in February but now a healthy, one-third of the 80,000 Japanese army deaths day on Leyte, since improvements were key to mischievous boy. And he took pride in the on Leyte came in the “mopping up” period, long-term health improvements, especially for large number of smallpox and typhoid vacci- “physically the most terrible fighting we were children. nations for children. ever to know,” a U.S. Army history recounted. “It’s just hard work because squatters don’t like box latrines,” he wrote. “We have seen “No subject of Hirohito some improvement because the CO has had To learn more about. . . kowtows to a Filipino.” 14 people arrested for indiscriminate defeca- • How the Allies moved tion. Usage is now up but we have to hope island-by-island toward the The incongruities of postwar recovery contin- the local officials will keep on it after we are Japanese mainland, www.archives.gov/ ued apace. As life returned to normal, several gone.” publications/prologue/2010/fall/. of the PCAU’s Filipino-American enlisted • How the Japanese plan for a decisive men took local women as brides in elaborate Dr. Smollar Finally naval battle, the “Z” plan, ended up in church ceremonies. My father’s driver was Gets Some Help American hands, go to www.archives. married on April 30 by an American military gov/publications/prologue/2005/fall/. priest. “The local priest had been charging 76 The PCAU contingent had three days of • How FDR asked for a declaration of pesos (33 dollars) even though the prewar fee real meals—not out of cans—while the war, go to www.archives.gov/publica- was 14 pesos and still is except for soldiers. Navy transported them to Macajalar Bay tions/prologue/2001/winter/. Our CO finally said the gouging had to stop in northern Mindanao, where elements of and brought in our own priest,” he wrote. the 40th Division had landed on May 10 to

12 Prologue Summer 2015 sweep Japanese forces into a pincer trap with troops of the 31st Division moving north. The area is one of the most fertile regions of the Philippines and included the Del Monte Pineapple Plantation. As such, the urban area was far more developed than Leyte, with asphalt roads, modern build- ings, and water systems, though badly dam- aged by artillery and bombing. There were numerous native physicians to help my father establish seven clinics and two hos- pitals for a large region with some 200,000 civilians, and reopen two hospitals that had operated before the war. While supplies were usually adequate, as division headquarters were next door to his unit, sufficient nursing help was a problem because so many women had fled to rural areas away from major Japanese military concentrations. (My father would learn some of the reasons later.) Noncombat medical cases centered on malnutrition and dysentery-related illnesses. They were exacerbated by the need to shift some PCAU food stocks to a reemerging Fili- pino Army and the fact that 95 percent of the population was infected with worms as a con- sequence of unsanitary wartime conditions.

Less Medical Work, More Administration

On Mindanao my father spent much of his Smollar’s passion for his work was evident in his May 4 letter. He wrote of the “pathetic, skeletal-looking, time on administration, plying dusty roads starving, children” who were brought in and how he scolded the mothers for not improving their nutrition. in a Jeep, checking on clinics and supplies, Yet locals accepted the ward as a place to come and get well. or making two-day boat trips to the farthest reaches of the PCAU’s responsibility. In being freed from an inland town. They had known by the Japanese euphemism “com- one town, he was spurned over and over by been forced to work as prostitutes for Japa- fort women.” guerrillas who refused to turn over a closed nese soldiers for almost a year. By July, PCAU 17 was one of only five spe- hospital for a new clinic. After five weeks of “They make us work just like carabao cial units still functioning, all on a reduced frustration, he turned to the local priest, who (buffalo),” they recounted in describing level, as the commonwealth government overnight procured the building. “You can get their forced sexual work. “Very, very pain- assumed most PCAU functions on the bat- cynical fast, but then you have this religious ful.” At the time, my father’s reaction was tle-scarred islands. With his work on Mind- father who relishes the never-ending struggle disgust at “the war and the Japs who truly anao winding down, my father learned that to improve the lot of people here.” are inhuman.” Decades later, their plight his singular labor of love in the Philippines, In one of his clinical encounters, 12 Fili- would be recognized as part of a system by the hospital in Palompon, had been closed, pino women were brought to the main hos- Japanese occupiers in Asia to force women along with three other PCAU facilities on pital for treatment of venereal disease after into prostitution for their troops; today it’s the west coast, because Leyte health officials

“Hard, Bitter, Unpleasantly Necessary Duty” Prologue 13 had a budget sufficient for only one regional hospital. One of his clinics remained open to continue the sanitation effort. “There’s no use discussing the reasons because these things always boil down to money and politics, and of course there is nothing I can do,” he wrote bitterly. “My efforts count for about as much as a cock- roach in a restaurant.”

PCAUs Relieved Combat Units Of Civil Affairs Functions

But similar closings and consolidations took place on every island, as the American pro- pensity to “save the world” ran up against real world barriers of time, money, and cul- ture. Some civil affairs officers had cautioned early on that the Philippines’ infrastructure could not sustain all the PCAU accomplish- ments after the teams departed. (Today, two hospitals established by PCAUs in the capi- tal of Manila are still operating.) Disillusioned, my father’s thoughts increas- ingly turned to postwar life at home, even though he feared his team’s next assignment would be to accompany a fall invasion of Japan. A return became realistic only with news on August 9 that the first atom bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima and that Russia had invaded Japanese-occupied China. “Right now I take no joy in having been part of the Philippine’s [sic] liberation,” he wrote. “My joy is seeing us defeat the Japs. Everyone is asking only one thing, when do we go back to the States?” In his August 1945 final report on Philip- pine Civil Affairs, MacArthur stressed that the units prevented widespread starvation, epidemics, and public disorder, all real fears at the time of his island-by-island invasions. His aide, Lt. Colonel Crossman, wrote that the “nearer that Army units got to the fighting, the more the Army appreciated civil affairs” because PCAUs relieved combat

Left: Smollar’s weekly report of March 23 reveals medical cases of malaria, dengue, typhoid fever, yaws, pneumonia, and others. With immunizations planned, the general situation was improving, he reported.

14 Prologue Summer 2015 By June 1945, the Army planned to transfer medical functions to the new Philippine Commonwealth Government. However, to Smollar’s dismay, the Palompon Civilian Hospital and Dispensary was closed.

units of responsibility for civilians. A public relations officer for several PCAUs, Capt. Ted Sendak, noted that the “we know best” attitude among Americans sometimes grated on Filipinos, who nevertheless remained grateful. “If certain weaknesses in the relief effort suffered from the American and Filipino character, the PCAU strengths also boasted the idealism and practicality of both,” Sendak wrote. “It was no pristine panacea but still a very human American effort.” And my father came around again to a more positive view of his time in the Philippines, despite his deep disappointment that much of the work now seemed ephemeral. In one of the last letters before coming home, he wrote, “We kept the civil- ians out of the Army’s hair and did a lot of health and welfare assistance. I realize that it feels good to know you’ve done some- thing, that in the midst of war we made even a start toward future progress.” P

Author David Smollar is a former Los Angeles Times reporter who now writes about history, transportation, and education from San Diego.

Note on Sources

My father’s letters, written over a 17-month period box 213, Office of the Surgeon General (Army), Southwest 1954) by M. Hamlin Cannon; Triumph in the Philippines in 1944–1945, provide the basic narrative. Several Pacific Area; and at entry 1012, box 529, the HUMEDS (Office of Military History, U.S. Army, 1963) by Robert record groups at the National Archives in College Park, Collection. Other PCAU information comes from RG 165, Ross Smith; The Philippines in World War II and to Maryland, contain critical documents that confirm Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, Independence, An Annotated Biography (The Cellar Book and expand upon material from the letters. The most Administrative History, at entry 463, box 38, Civil Affairs Shop Press, 1995) by Morton J. Netzorg; In Our Image: important is Record Group (RG) 496, Records of Correspondence. America’s Empire in the Philippines (Random House, General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific and United Donovan Research Library at Fort Benning, Georgia, 1989) by Stanley Karnow; The Japanese Occupation of States Army Forces Pacific. Entry 385 has documents contains comprehensive Leyte invasion operations reports the Philippines, vol. 2, (Bookmark Manila, 1967) by from the Civil Affairs Section, and boxes 2289–2295 for the Sixth Army, Eighth Army, XXIV Corps and 77th A.V.H. Hartendorp; “Operations of the 77th Infantry contain the weekly PCAU reports filed by the 30 teams. Division; all include PCAU and Civil Affairs discussions. Division (XXIV Corps) in the Ormoc Corridor, Leyte Entry 233 has files of the Adjutant General, and box CARL, the online Combined Arms Research Library for the Island, 7 December 1944–February 1945” (The Infantry 1805 holds a detailed history of the PCAUs, written U.S. Army Command and General Staff Library, offers the School, Ft. Benning, 1948) by Maj. Marshall O. Becker; in August 1945 by the Civil Affairs Section of U.S. document “Cases and Materials on Military Government,” “The Operations of the 164 Regimental Combat Team Army Forces Pacific (GHQ, AFPAC). Entry 589, box containing PCAU reports, issued September 15, 1945, by the (Americal Division) in Western Leyte, Philippine Islands, 351, contains periodic special reports by a few PCAUs U.S. Army Civil Affairs Staging Area in Monterey, California. 1 February–10 March 1945” (Command and Staff compiled by the Civil Affairs Detachment of U.S. Army The Joseph Rauh oral history is held at the Harry College, Fort. Leavenworth, 1947) by Lt. Col, James Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. The Taylor, Jr. Records of the World War II Philippine Archives unpublished wartime memoir of Lt. Col. Edgar Crossman Two individuals helped me immensely: Eric Van with PCAU references are in RG 407, Records of is online courtesy of his children. Slander, World War II military archivist at the National the Adjutant General’s Office, 1917–, World War II The most useful secondary sources include: “The Archives at College Park, patiently guided me through Operations Reports, at entry 427, boxes 17838–17840. Philippines and Okinawa,” chapter 16, by Thomas Turner the maze of war documents until I uncovered the critical While not comprehensive, these reports are still useful M.D. in Civil Affairs/Military Government Public Health PCAU weekly reports; and Genoa R. Stanford, reference in understanding PCAU activities. Records for several Activities, vol. 8, of Preventive Medicine in World War II series librarian at Fort Benning’s Donovan Research Library, PCAU operations are found in RG 112, Records of the (Medical Department, U.S. Army, 1976); Leyte: The Return located key PCAU-related material to expedite my search Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, at entry 31, to the Philippines (Office of Military History, U.S. Army, at the National Archives.

“Hard, Bitter, Unpleasantly Necessary Duty” Prologue 15